Qld youth crime crackdown sees 70pc of kid criminals in custody

Police say a crackdown on youth crime is bearing fruit, as they research ways of stopping social media from making matters worse.

A youth crime crackdown is working and has led to almost 70 per cent of child criminals being held in custody or pleading guilty under new laws, one of the state’s most senior officers says.

Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon, who heads the Youth Justice Taskforce, has also thrown cold water on calls for breach-of-bail laws for juveniles, telling The Courier-Mail they would not be a quick fix for the youth crime problem.

Ms Scanlon said social media was fuelling the juvenile crime issue greater than ever before, and in some cases ringleaders influenced children from families whose parents were doing everything they could to keep them on track.

Youth Justice senior executive director Michael Drane and Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon. Picture: Tara Croser

Much of youth crime has centred on juveniles breaking into homes and stealing cars, with one of the latest incidents involving Wallabies legend Toutai Kefu and his family being allegedly attacked by juveniles with an axe, machete and knife.

Police have said most children who commit crimes are diverted by the courts after their first appearance, but a hardcore group of about 10 per cent continually break the law.

“Obviously that’s an ongoing narrative publicly, that breach of bail is a simple solution to the current serious repeat offender issues that we have,” Ms Scanlon said.

“I can tell you having worked for well over 30 years in child protection and youth justice issues as a police officer, that’s not a quick fix for the problems we’ve got.

“We are dealing with significant complexity in these kids, in that top 10 per cent cohort including social dysfunction, poverty, and in some cases we’ve got well-equipped families who have lost control of their children because of peer-group pressure to commit serious criminal offences as a form of entertainment.”

Image from @northsidecrab Instagram with Mercedes.

Youth Justice senior executive director Michael Drane said the state’s detention centres were almost full and 100 more juveniles were in custody than at the same time last year.

Police arrested 738 juveniles, held in custody by police with an objection to bail, in the four months to August 24, since new presumption against bail legislation was introduced in April.

The laws mean there is a presumption against bail (for offences such as assault, attempted robbery, unauthorised use of a motor vehicle where the child is a driver, and dangerous driving) while a child is on bail for an indictable offence.

Of the children arrested, 512 applied for bail with 243 in a show cause position under the new bail laws.

Figures show 159 had bail refused and were remanded in detention by the court while 84 were granted bail by courts.

Another 269 of the 512 were not in a show cause position and 151 had bail granted, while 118 had bail refused.

There were 226 who did not apply for bail and either pleaded guilty and were sentenced, or were remanded in detention.

New figures also show the total number of juvenile offences decreased 10.2 per cent to 52,001 offences, comparing 2019-20 and 2020-21, while the number of unique juvenile offenders decreased 5.8 per cent to 10,559.

Ms Scanlon said social media was a key driver in some of the youth crime and it also created copycat offending.

She said banning people from using the internet was difficult, but that police were researching the use of social media and were considering options for the future.

Police now have nine positions for specialist bail lawyers across the state and are filling an additional three in Mackay, Rockhampton and Mount Isa.

They will work on children’s court matters to strengthen police bail objections and appeal decisions by the courts.

Mr Drane said the taskforce had a goal to get children back in schools, to gain employment and on to positive pathways.

Since amendments to the Youth Justice Act, there were 550 instances where parents and guardians had given courts assurances they would ensure the child complied with bail conditions. He said it gave a better chance of stopping reoffending.